As an avowed atheist living among a sea of believers (both locally and on the Internet), I have spent a lot of time discussing my beliefs (or lack thereof, as the case may be). The purpose of this blog is not to prove the non-existence of God or "de-convert" anybody from their faith, but simply to preserve some of these discussions and allow me to flesh them out through the process of writing them down, as well as to share them with anybody who might be interested in reading them.

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Top Ten Misconceptions about Atheists - Part One

All right, I should probably have called this “Top Ten Lies
about Atheists” or “Top Ten Misrepresentations about Atheists” or even “Top Ten
Things People Claim about Atheists Even Though They Know Full Well They Aren’t
True and Have Been Refuted Repeatedly,” but I figure there must be at least some theists out there who are sincere
and honestly believe what they have been told about atheists.This post is addressed at these hypothetical
sincere theists and not those who go out of their way to repeat stuff they know
to be false for the purpose of advancing their own agenda (“a.k.a. “Lying for
Jesus”).

As always, I apologize if any of the “misconceptions” I
describe seem like straw men arguments of their own, misrepresenting what
theists say about atheists.I certainly
don’t claim that all theists have these misconceptions, but they are all
legitimately misconceptions I have personally encountered from different
theists.

Oh – and this list isn’t ranked in any particular order and probably
won’t have exactly ten items….

Misconception Number One -- Atheists Believe There Is No God, Are Angry at God or
Hate God

First off, let me preface this by
pointing out that the word atheist literally means somebody who does not have a
belief in a god of any sort.Beyond
that, it’s really hard to lump all atheists together and say what they do, or
do not, believe or what their “true” motivations are.Just like, beyond the fact that all theists,
by definition, believe in a god or gods of some sort, it’s impossible to say
anything else about “all theists.”

Having said that, there are
certainly gradations as to how different atheists approach or define their non-belief in god.There are many
atheists, true, who have investigated the claims of different religions and
have come to the conclusion that the gods described by those religions can’t
possibly be true, whether because of logical impossibility, contradictory
statements in the holy scriptures about the god in question, lack of any
supporting evidence that should be there if the god existed, actions of those
who profess belief in those gods (“by their fruits ye shall know them”), etc.But there are also many atheists who haven’t
really given it much thought and simply have no reason to believe in any particular
god, usually because they were raised in a family or a culture where God was
never discussed.Many theists may believe
that a belief in God (they’re personal version of God, of course) is the
natural state of man and that one must actively resist that belief in order to
be an atheist.In fact, however, all you
need to not believe in God is to not be taught to believe in him in the first
place. It's sort of like claiming that belief in Santa Claus is the natural state of man (despite the fact that many people have never even heard of Santa Claus and there are wide variations in how Santa is depicted even among those people who do believe in him). You don't need to be actively taught that Santa Claus doesn't exist in order to not believe in him -- you just have to never be taught that he does exist in the first place.

As for atheists being angry at God or hating him, I
suppose it is certainly true that some people who call themselves atheists feel
this way. Again, though, as comforting as it is to think that God’s existence
is so obvious that the only people who claim disbelief are those who KNOW he
exists and actively reject him, the truth is that most atheists either have
lost their belief due to learning more about the world or never had a belief to
begin with.